Genentech off on Avastin sales news

SAN FRANCISCO (MarketWatch) -- Shares of biotechnology giant Genentech Inc. fell in evening trading Tuesday after its earnings report showed sales of a key drug fell short of expectations, while Apple Computer shares extended their gains after it said revenue would exceed forecasts.

The Nasdaq-100 After Hours Indicator, which tracks the evening action of the index's leading shares, rose fractionally to 1,744.17.

Genentech
DNA, -4.29%
shares dropped 2.6% to $90.95 in evening trading after the report showed that sales of its cancer drug Avastin fell short of analyst expectations even though they grew from the year-earlier period.

Genentech reported fourth-quarter net income of $339.2 million, or 31 cents a share, 64% higher than the $206.6 million, or 19 cents a share, for the same period a year ago. Operating revenues were $1.9 billion vs. last year's $1.3 billion.

The company's non-GAAP earnings of 34 cents a share were in line with the estimate from analysts polled by Thomson First Call. See full story.

Shares of Apple Computer Co
AAPL, +1.63%
rose 0.5 % to $81.27 after hitting an all-time high of $81.89 earlier in the day. The shares rose after the maker of the iPod said revenue in the December quarter exceeded expectations on surging demand for the ubiquitous portable music player.

Intel Corp.
INTC, +0.17%
climbed 0.1% to $26.15 after Apple unveiled new personal computers that run on Intel processors and said all its PCs would use Intel chips by the end of 2006, earlier than expected. See full story.

Shares of Audible Inc.
ADBL
dropped 13.8% to $11.24 after it said it now expects full-year 2005 revenue of $62 million to $64 million, compared with its previous forecast of revenue between $62 million and $65 million.

Audible also said it expects a 2005 pretax loss in the range of $1 million to $1.5 million. The company's previous outlook was for pretax earnings of $1.6 million to $2 million. Both forecasts exclude stock-based compensation expense of about $930,000, said the Wayne, N.J.-based provider of digital spoken-audio on the Web. See full story.

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